The Cigarette
by Pacifique
Summary: Tom M. Riddle's father left when he found out his wife was a witch. He paid for his crime many years later at the hands of his son. They did, however, see each other once in the intervening period.


** Title: The Cigarette  
Author: Pacifique  
E-mail: StormAndStress (at) gmail (dot) com  
Date Written: Friday, July 8, 2005  
Music: Mogwai - Young Team**

Notes: This entire (not-very-long-at-all) one-shot is based off one scene that popped into my head because it's raining outside and I'm staring at the monitor in the wee hours of the morning. For the sake of description, Tom M. Riddle will have green eyes.

**Summary: **Tom M. Riddle's father left when he found out his wife was a witch. He paid for his crime many years later at the hands of his son. They did, however, see each other once in the intervening period.

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** The Cigarette **

The man leaned against the whitewashed wall of the pub, the lit cigarette in his hand dangling contemptuously, his eyes surveying the boy who stood in front of him. Had anyone been there to look at the two of them, the fact that they were closely related would have been obvious. The black hair and vaguely aristocratic features, the handsomeness to their looks, in spite of the fact the boy was only eleven years old, all pointed to shared blood. The man flicked his cigarette, sending the greying ash at the end towards the boy, and took a drag. 

"So, you're the offspring of that bloody Hazel bitch, eh?" 

The sky was uniformly grey in every direction, a somber sea of steel and steam. The pub, with its whitewashed walls and old, fading sign that said _The Hanged Man_, stood at the base of the hill on which the Riddle House rested. There was not a soul to be seen, which was unusual for midday. There was no breeze to trouble either the man or the man-child's wavy hair. 

"Don't you talk about my mother that way, you bastard!". 

The boy presented an amusing picture. Average height for his age, but quite thin and waiflike, dressed in rags and hand-me-downs that looked as though they had been handed down several too many times. Despite his old clothes, the boy had the appearance of one who tries to keep as clean as possible under the circumstances. He was by no means strong - the man could have kidnapped him with ease - but his eyes held no fear, only defiance blazing in their emerald depths. The man didn't know this boy had one of the most brilliant minds in the country, and had he known, he probably would not have cared. 

"She was worth ten of you, and even that's an insult to her memory!" 

The man glanced down at the boy again, taking the time to flick a little more ash onto him as he did. His clothes were elegant and expensive, but rumpled as though they hadn't been changed recently. Though the sun had yet to begin its descent towards the western horizon, the smell of alcohol on the man's breath was clear. He was unshaven, and did not seem to care about his appearance, in contrast to the boy's earnest fastidiousness. 

"So she's dead, is she? Got what was coming to her, what with all that unnatural _magic_ rot. Best thing I ever done, leaving her. Bitch." 

The two glared at each other, washed-out, shallow blue meeting sparking green. The man blew smoke at the boy, who almost drew away, but stopped himself. 

"I just wanted to tell you that I'm going to school in Scotland to learn that _unnaturalness_. And when I do - " 

The boy's near-hiss was cut off by the man's laughter. 

"And when you do, you'll do _what_? Get lost, boy." 

The boy simply looked for a moment, then began to turn away, his eyes two flawless emerald gems carved and hard and smooth. The man fancied for one moment that he saw a tall, skeletally thin apparition of vapor behind the boy, and for a moment there flashed in his head the image of a stark-white face with glaring red eyes and slits for nostrils - and a vivid tableau of green eyes dulling, darkening, closing - and then snapping back open the color of blood. 

He never realized his cigarette had gone out.

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**Read and Review!  
Pacifique**


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